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I missed the large part of 2nd half but from what I did see I thought he was good. Keeping the ball, distributing and also off the ball movement.

Think the club needs to apply some pressure on Valverde to play these most talented youngsters. There were opportunities where he could do that without risk too. I am not fan of Zidane but he is not afraid to put those kids into fire.

Vallejo played 7 matches.
Theo - 19.
Ceballos - 19.
Asensio plays all the time.
And Borja played in 20 matches so you are way off on him as well.

Now compare that with Valverde. Zidane gives Real Madrid youngsters a lot of chances compared to any top club out there nevermind Barcelona.

So maybe Perez and Zidane do have a sound plan. After winning much expected 10th CL title they decided they didn't need to go crazy on the market and are re-building plus saving for the new stadium or whatever.

Yes, Zidane is giving time to young players. Even Hakimi who is nothing special got to start some important games, like vs Tottenham on Bernabeu.

But, while they have a pretty good chance of winning the CL, if they don't win it, the season is a totally failed one for them.

It's win the CL or bust this season for them. That's not a great position to be in.

That being said, next season Valverde needs to start building a new team, with Coutinho, Semedo, Dembele, even Arthur, maybe Alena, maybe Griezmann. Somehow, he'll need to put all these very young, or young but mature (Cou & Griezmann) players into the first eleven.

It would have helped if Alena was given more playing time in the first team. He's more talented than a few young players that got more chances under Zidane at Madrid. It's pretty clear that Zidane is trusting youth more than Valverde.

When a manager identifies with the club, zidane with Madrid, pep & rijkaard with us, they will be more likey to give young players a chance, other managers see it as a excellent opportunity to build there CV, so they are less likely to take chances.

Both Pep and Zidane were B team coaches and those are most likely to promote youth more. Pep didn't repeat anywhere else and unlikely Zidan will do it in his next job. And Pep promoted 3 players in his first 3 years anyway, EV is one player short of his Pep

Originally Posted by jamrock

other managers see it as a excellent opportunity to build there CV, so they are less likely to take chances.

This however is also true in current situation, we will need one more decade until our fans get over Pep hangover. People still doubts a brilliant coach like Lucho after all what he won, almost every coach after Pep will never be highly rated no matter what he does, this fact will make us:
1-No highly rated coach will risk to come here to be just another coach who win because of Messi or because of what Pep said and never get fans credit of what he has done.
2-The coaches who will hire (most likely middle table good coaches like EV & Lucho) will look for building their CV, we are another team in their CV. they will want to win more than anything.

Bottom line: People shouldn't expect a youth friendly coach anytime soon, Only Lucho tried to do so and it backfired with Munir and Sandro doing terribly

Re pep isn't not a matter of straight up promoting kids about giving them chances to see if they have what it takes for them to successed and regarding that it was way more than 3, kinda like zidane not everyone will be promoted. But he is giving them a chance to see who will fit the bill.

Pep also game young players like kimmich & comam chances at Bayern

That Ukrainian kid, foden and Diaz at City.

But yeah largely what you are saying & what I was is right, most coaches won't look to do that, although rijkaard did as well & he was probably more of a risk & under more pressure than valverde.